The Shangzhuang Fe-Ti oxide-bearing layered mafic intrusion, northeast of Beijing (North China): Implications for the mantle source of the giant Late Mesozoic magmatic event in the North China Craton

Abstract

The Early Cretaceous Shangzhuang Fe-Ti oxide-bearing layered mafic intrusion in the Yanshan Belt northeast of Beijing is coeval with the giant Late Mesozoic igneous province in the eastern part of the North China Craton (NCC). This magmatic event was associated with lithospheric thinning and thus the igneous rocks have been used to characterize the nature of the Mesozoic mantle beneath the NCC. The Shangzhuang mafic pluton intruded a large granodioritic complex and crystallized at ~850–872°C at a depth of 13–14 km. It is composed, from the base upward, of troctolite, Fe-Ti oxide-bearing gabbronorite and gabbro. Rocks from this intrusion have low initial 87Sr/86Sr ratios (0.7053–0.7058), negative initial εNd values (−9.4 to −10.7), highly differentiated LREE and nearly flat HREE patterns indicative of an EMI-like mantle source unaffected by upper crustal contamination. The occurrence of Fe-Ti oxide ore layers, magnetite-ilmenite exsolution lamellae in hornblende and high TiO2 contents of the silicate rocks indicate that they formed from Fe- and Ti-rich ferrobasaltic magmas, which may have been generated by addition of magmas from a deeper mantle source. The presence of orthopyroxene, high-Mg ilmenite (up to 8.5 wt %), hornblende, biotite and high oxygen fugacities calculated from coexisting titanomagnetite-ilmenite pairs can be explained by derivation from an enriched EMI-type mantle modified by fluids from a subducted slab and mixed with asthenospheric or deeper-mantle materials in an extensional setting. Exposure of the complex occurred during large-scale uplift (at least 13 km) and exhumation of the Yanshan orogenic belt in the Early Cretaceous. Chemical metasomatism triggered by water and enhanced by heat from a deep magma source may have played an important role in removing the ancient cratonic root, generating partial melting of the lithospheric mantle and producing coeval magmatic activity in the Mesozoic eastern NCC.